1.
The opening session began by the recitation of
Holy Quran after which Dr. Roozitalab; the Deputy Head of AREO and Chairman of
GFAR welcomed the participants (see annex 1-2) and wished them a very
successful meeting. He pointed out that the meeting should attempt to
concentrate on the problems that the region faces regarding Agricultural
information systems and that effective solutions should be sought to solve
them. He talked about the history of AARINENA-RAIS and the efforts which have
been made from year 2000 in this regard. He pointed out that the region needs
to have active focal points in the sub-regions and even in sub-regional
countries to facilitate information exchange and to get accurate and timely
data. He announced that the New AARINENA Web site now available online, could
help the region by facilitating exchange of information between sub-regional
countries. He also stressed that development of Databases like NARS, visiting
Experts and Projects are highly required in the region and that a standard
policy should be adopted in this regard. Finally he wished participants a
pleasant stay in
2.
Dr. Rafea, the Chairman of the AARINENA ICT
Steering Committee and the Head of CLAES, welcomed all the participants and
send his special thanks to AREO for organizing the meeting. He started by
reviewing briefly the first SC meeting in ICARDA and the priorities and
decisions, which have been made during the last meeting. He also expressed his regret that three valuable
members namely Dr. Giovannetti, from GFAR, Dr. Maliha from ICARDA and Mrs.
Tahani Hussain from
3.
The Agenda was approved (see annex 1-2) after
adding a 15 minutes presentation by Dr. Hattar from AOAD, and was included
after the Sub-regional Representatives’ presentations and before the
presentation of training needs assessment in WANA Region for
building the technical capability of the ICM technical staff for the proposed
National Agricultural Information System/Network which is given by FAO Representative.
4.
Dr. Rafea nominated Mrs. Taraneh Ebrahimi,
AARINENA-RAIS Secretary to serve as the moderator during the meeting, and the
nomination was approved by the committee members.
5.
The minutes of the first meeting of the committee
held in ICARDA,
6.
Dr. Rafea reviewed briefly the approved strategy
during the first meeting’s meeting which consisted of the following items:
A.
Framework of Action to develop
the WANA/RAIS on the National and Regional Levels
Dr. Rafea pointed out that there are two
frameworks. The first framework is at the National level and the second one is
at the Regional levels. The one at the National level is the development of
these four modules using an integrated relational data base:
Ø
Institutional Information Management
Ø
Projects Information Management
Ø
Experts Information Management
Ø
Research Outputs Information Management
Some
efforts have been implemented at the national level, but they are not using
relational database and no country has all four modules. The Regional framework
consists of the following items:
Ø
Enhancing
the Web site of AARINENA
Ø
Launching
of electronic forum of discussion enabling and fostering dialogues within and
amongst all the stakeholders involved in agricultural research for development
in the region,
Ø
Launching
of a question and answer service at the regional level,
Ø
Establishment
of a gateway function at the regional level facilitating accesses to
information managed by NARS
B.
Implementation Plan
·
Collaborative Programs and Implementation
Priorities
The implementation plan
as was agreed upon is
Ø
Continuous enhancement
of AARINENA web site www.aarinena.org
Ø
Defining an
articulated set of small-scale collaborative programs consistent with these
national and regional frameworks.
C.
The six different collaborative
programs that are suggested to be done in the region are:
·
Design of National Agriculture Information System
Database;
·
Design and Implementation of Experts Information
System;
·
Design and Implementation of Institutes
Information System (IIS);
·
Design and Implementation of Projects Information
System (PIS);
·
Design and implementation of Research Outputs
Information System (RIS);
·
Electronic Forum for discussion and
Question-and-Answer service; and
·
Gateway function that has multi-host database
search engine
D.
The priorities were set as
follows:
·
RAIS phase 1 should include Projects 1 and 6;
·
Design of National Agriculture Information System
Database;
·
Electronic Forum for discussion and
Question-and-Answer service; and
·
Remaining set of projects 2-5 and 7 will be
implemented as second phase.
Finally Dr Rafea
summarized the current status of RAIS implementation in these points:
·
AARINENA Web site has been enhanced;
·
Data for the status of NAIS and human resources
have been collected and analyzed; and
·
A project Proposal has been prepared
7.
The new version of AARINENA website was presented
by Mrs. Taraneh Ebrahimi. She discussed the following issues:
a)
Two new items, namely a ‘search’ and a ‘spotlight
section’ were added to AARINENA web site.
The search system allows for finding useful information regarding NARIs, universities, NGOs etc… in the regional countries.
Ø
In the new
version of AARINENA all the components of the old web site are divided to three
separate sections:
Ø
The first
section is related to the AARINENA association: it contains general information
about AARINENA, its vision and mission, the governance group (which includes
the Executive Committee, AARINENA Secretary and Secretariat and etc.),
Sub-regional Organizations.
Ø
The second
section is related to the AARINENA-RAIS: it contains general information about
the RAIS (Steering Committee, RAIS Secretariat), databases, regional networks,
E-discussion, events, publications, etc…
Ø
The third
section contains Tools like spotlights, search engine, site map and a link to
the EGFAR webring connecting AARINENA information system to all the other RAIS
through the site of GFAR that will act as a gateway of regional gateways.
b)
An Arabic version of the web site could be very
useful, because it is the native language of about 90% of the countries of the
region. She asked the SC members to decide in this meeting about this important
issue and nominate one of the Arabic countries to follow this activity in close
collaboration with the RAIS Secretariat in Iran. All the up-to date news and
activities should be published at the same time in the Arabic section too.
c)
The main problems regarding development of Web
site were as follows:
Ø
Getting
accurate and timely information;
Ø
Cooperation
and collaboration in data and information collection and distribution.
Ø
Training
and skills development: we need training programs for the regional
representatives and RAIS managers.
Ø
Technical support
8.
The
representative of FAO/RNE offered to collaborate with AARINENA secretariat to
arabize the user interfaces of AARINENA website. The AOAD representative also
proposed the support of AOAD to do the same.
9.
Dr. Abdelazia al-Louzi, the representative of
Mashreq sub-region discussed the following:
a.
Designing a web based system in html for
researchers of NCARTT including their names, e-mail addresses and other
relevant information. The system contains currently 100 researchers.
b.
Contacting with other sub-regional countries
didn’t happen during last year as no active focal points were found in these
countries and all sent e-mails remained without any response from their part.
He emphasized the fact that there is a lack of cooperation among countries in
Mashreq sub-region
10.
The second
representative was, Mr. Otman Sebbata, from Morocco who briefed the committee
about the efforts exerted to collect data from the Maghreb sub-region
countries:
a.
Libya and Algeria showed no interest.
b.
In Morocco, they are working on the new version
of MIS existing modules namely Institutions and Research Projects.
c.
The speed of connectivity to Internet grew up to
256 kpbs and they have about 50-117 workstations in
the agricultural institution
After the presentation of Mr. Sebbata, the participants
emphasized the importance of having focal point/expert in each country in the
region.
11.
Dr. Hattar
from AOAD, made his presentation about the newly developed AOAD web site, which
provides a lot of information to the agricultural stakeholders in the region.
He briefed the committee about the ICT status in the AOAD:
a.
AOAD has now 3 servers and many workstations
b.
There is the news system (NEMS), which allows
users to input their data from anywhere directly to the system.
c.
The statistical database gives valuable
information on the agricultural production in Arab countries, population,
export, import, and agricultural companies.
d.
The Marketing Network has been established.
e.
The Olive Network and date palm network are now
available on the web site.
f.
The library of AOAD includes about 45000 books
and documents. The books titles are available now on the web site and it is
possible to search the library content from within the site, but abstracts or
full texts are not yet available.
12.
The following presentation was done by Dr. Magdi
Latif, Information Management Officer, FAO/RNE. He prepared a questionnaire
which was previously sent to sub regional representatives who are members in
RAIS/AARINENA steering committee. The
questionnaire was designed to assess the training needs in West Asia and North
Africa (WANA) Region for developing the technical capability of the ICM
technical staff to manage and even to a certain extent develop the proposed
National Agricultural Information System/Network. Responses on the ICM Training
Needs assessment were only received from 60% of the countries (Algeria,
Morocco, Cyprus, Sudan and Syria). Forty percent of the countries did not
respond (Egypt, Jordan, Iran and Yemen). However, as there is significant
similarity between countries in the region, the outcome of the analysis is
quite applicable for all the countries in the region. After analyzing the
questionnaires (see annex 2), the following results were observed:
a.
Lack of qualified technical staff is
one of the major technical problems facing the Agriculture Information Centers
in all the responding countries.
b.
Human Capacity Building through Training was
highly recommended by all responding countries
c.
Training the
Trainers (TTT) and Distance Learning (DL) programmes in ICM (Information and
Communication Management and Networking Training Programmes) are the most
important types of technical training courses required for building the
technical capacity
d.
The Internship Program was highly recommended by
100% of the responding countries if it is to be introduced in Near East Region
e.
All responding countries recognized the urgent
need for technical training support to build the capacity of their institutions
f.
Five training courses (WDM, WDDD, WISDP and
WebAGRIS AD) for ICM Technical Staff are required to be technically trained for
National Agricultural Information System/Network in the Agriculture Information
Centers in their institutions.
g.
Two to four persons in each responding country
were suggested to be made available for technical training on National
Agricultural Information System/Network in the Agriculture Information Center
of their institutions.
h.
At least one technical staff member as confirmed
by 100% of the responding countries in the Agriculture Information Centers of
their institutions should be specialized in Web Information Systems
development.
i.
AGRIS Resource Centers are only available in 40%
of the responding countries and the representatives of member countries are
likely to take the lead to establish WebAGRIS Resource Center in their
Agricultural Information Centers to benefit from the new AGRIS Resource Centers
strategy developed by FAO.
j.
The representatives of
member countries are to be encouraged working on developing National
Agricultural Information Strategy for their countries as All responding
countries confirmed that there is no available future plan for the Development
of National Agricultural Information System and software/tools that could be
used in this regard.
13.
All the SC members agreed to consider the IT
training courses for capacity building and development in the region as a main
objective in the future programs. Dr. Roozitalab said that we should select the
right policy in this regard and of course we need the financial support from
International Organizations to implement such activities.
Dr. Rafea pointed out that training must have
concrete objectives and that training for awareness may be useful for top
management but it is a waste of time if we conduct it for technical staffs that
do not have power to take decisions.
14.
Dr. Rafea made the final presentation in the
first day of the meeting. It was about the results of the National Information
Systems Questionnaire (see annex 3), which he has prepared and sent to AARINENA
ICT steering committee members to be filled by national institution in
countries of their sub regions. The questionnaire included two sections.
a.
The first section included 9 general questions
related to the NARSs:
Ø
The body
responsible for IT
Ø
Technical
people
Ø
Active
local area Networks
Ø
Connectivity
to Internet
Ø
The
bandwidth of this connection
Ø
Number of
Workstations
Ø
Number of
servers
Ø
Type of
operating Systems
Ø
Type of
Software packages
Dr. Rafea mentioned that
eight countries have filled out the questionnaires (Algeria, Egypt, Iran,
Jordan, Morocco, Sudan, Syria and Yemen).
Preliminary
analysis revealed that most of the national research organizations in the eight
countries have a body responsible of information, and a local area network. The
connectivity rate to the Internet is not mentioned in some of the responses.
This indicates that some of the countries still have problems in connectivity.
The number of workstations ranges from 3 to over 300 in national research
organizations as a whole.
Most
of the software identified indicates that the computers are mainly used for
office automation or using ready-made information packages such as CDS-ISIS.
Few countries have Data Base Management System (DBMS) such as SQL and Oracle.